Minna Ga Ita Kara
by CF-fanfiction
Summary: Making decisions is never easy...especially when the life of someone you care for hangs in the balance. (not yaoi) (COMPLETE)


Chaos: I don't know...I finished writing this late at night, and actually thought it was good. Then I reread it the next day and nearly screamed. _Did I write that?! Ack! Burn it, burn it!_ But after unsuccessfully trying to set fire to the computer screen, I chucked it into an old file and forgot it. That was a month ago, until today when a friend demanded to see it and read it, despite my repeated warnings. She finished it, turned to me, grabbed me by the collar and said, "Post it on Fanfiction NOW." Which was scary. So...here we are. I really don't know...review if you feel like it. There is no other chapter. There will probably be no other chapter. Be warned.

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Yugi sat by the window in silence. Silence that weighed heavily on the air and made moving more difficult than it should have been. The moon shone brightly and it hurt his eyes to look at it, so he looked down at the floor, arms folded.

Time seemed to have stopped. Nothing moved, save for Yugi's chest in breathing. The second hand of the clock on wall shivered and then moved infinitely slowly into the next slot.

Another second gone.

Another thousand wails in his head.

Yami had always been a calm person. Quiet affection, steely anger, controlled pain...but never any outburst of feeling. Nothing that might alarm Yugi in any way - it was a personality developed in years of ruling.

And completely shattered now.

Yami was like a whirlwind of emotion in his soul room, crashing against the walls, stirring millenium-old dust that his quiet footsteps had never before shifted, screaming curses in all the dark languages he could remember.

And still Yugi refused to respond, staring stubbornly at the gold item in front of him, trying to give himself the strength to do the impossible. To break the Millenium Puzzle. His hand reached out, paused, hung where he couldn't move it, couldn't reach it, couldn't command it to do the one thing that would end this.

__

Yugi, don't! Don't do it! It was an accident! Please, Yugi, aibou! PLEASE!

Yugi's throat was dry, but his will unwavering. He knew anger was a passionate emotion; it would flare and die, and he would forgive and be hurt again. Do it now. Do it while you still can. His hand shifted another inch.

Yami was on the floor now, sobbing, begging, broken, hating what he was reduced to, dreading what would happen if Yugi broke the Puzzle.

Goodbye to his life. Goodbye to the times they'd shared, to the friends he had even dared to think of as his own. Goodbye to the real world - he doubted there would ever be another like Yugi, with the skill and fate to piece together the Puzzle.

He thumped helplessly at the unyielding stones beneath him, hating everything.

Everything except his hikari, his other half, who was about to destroy him.

Because he couldn't hate Yugi, he never would, because he had sworn to protect him.

__

Yugi!!!

Yami's mind voice conveyed enough anguish and terror and pain and frustration and a thousand other emotions to fill a lifetime. It was soul-wrenching, and for Yugi's good nature almost unbearable.

It was as though he was slashing his Yami...no, Yami, just Yami...with a knife, again and again.

But a cold flame was burning inside his heart, whispering the events of the day again and again, demanding justice, hissing spitefully. And it leant Yugi the strength to hurt his Yami, his Darkness, to crumble his world to ashes.

The second hand grated round again. Two seconds down, and still the deed was undone.

"I have to do this." Yugi's voice was weak and rasping from crying and shock.

__

No!

"I have to. You're too...too..." And Yugi couldn't finish the sentence, which stabbed Yami harder than anything else he could have finished with, because it conveyed so much revulsion and disgust that he felt sick.

If only he could unwind the last twenty four hours...

But what was done was done, though it erased all his ideas of religion of any kind, because what God would do this to a person?

__

Please Yugi, no, you're my world, please!

Yami was desperate, near burbling, all premise of dignity and pride evaporated in the single, sole need to be with his hikari. Yugi felt a pressure growing within him, threatening to burst, to quench the fire eating him inside, to make him do the kind thing and forgive.

To forgive what could not be forgiven. To forgive Yami for what had been done in the space of a second, a second that could effect an entire lifetime.

"No." Yugi said quietly, hand still outstretched. "No. I'm strong. I have to do this, so it never happens again. I have to. I can. I will!" But the force behind his words was dying away, threatening to leave him open to hurt and emotion and weakness.

There was a stinging in his eyes and a lump in his throat and a pressure in his chest that grew with every passing second, obscuring his judgement and making him shiver with the need to be weak - be human - and cry and be cuddled in someone's arms like a little child, safe and secure.

Yami was silent, beaten, crushed. It was a feeling he would never forget - to be completely defeated by the one person he really cared about, the one person he would willingly die for. Tears streaked over the dust settling on his face as he waited, finally resigned to it and simply waiting.

The air was charged with electric emotions between the two. And it all targeted on Yugi, little innocent Yugi who would gladly have picked up the Puzzle and cradled it, whispering apologies and wishing to be safe.

But he had to break it - he had to be stronger than nobody had to be, and destroy another's life and soul. For the sake of his tortured friend, lying in the hospital, trapped in a nightmare.

The prickling in his eyes grew and threatened to spill over, tears quenching the fire that flickered uncertainly.

__

Do it. Do it, my Light. Do it now. You're right - I deserve it.

Yami's spirit was broken, feelings numb as he waited for the end.

__

Do it now. Do it before I forget to do the right thing and plead for you to stop. Do it, please! It's all I ask.

Yugi was crying now, unashamed in the face of Yami who was in so much worse a state than he. His hand clenched, closed on thin air, trembling. Trembling for Yami, for himself, for Kaiba burning in the hospital, mind trapped where no consciousness should ever be, for Mokuba crying by his brother's side, for everyone and everything and how he was going to affect it all.

All stemming from a simple duel in a bright, sunny world that seemed so far away now, from the passionate anger that shifted worlds in the space of a second.

Finally he spoke, voice choked with sobs and pain.

"I can't."

__

No...no! You must! I deserve to...to be where he is. Do it now, aibou...I beg you, do it now and get it over with.

"No...I can't."

What to say?

I can't because I'm only human.

I can't because I'm too weak to inflict that on another.

I can't because you're begging me to.

I can't because if I could, maybe, perhaps, I might have done the same thing.

__

No, you never would, because you're good, and strong, and trusting and everything I'm not...and, and-

Yami couldn't carry on, stones so cold they were almost burning against his face, as he lay, broken.

Yugi swallowed.

"I can't because...because two wrongs don't make a right. And then two people would suffer instead of one and the blame would fall on me. And I...I couldn't bear that, endlessly wondering if I'd done the right thing and haunted by voices in my sleep. I can't. I won't. Because...because I'm selfish and don't want to suffer for the rest of my life over one little decision."

Yami said nothing, stunned by the selflessness in Yugi's voice. Tears welled up in his eyes again as he wished that he could be that perfect, that merciful...but it was too late and he had already sinned by choice in a split-second.

And he could never be his hikari.

Then the flame left Yugi, and he was surrounded by grief, and indecision, and all the other feelings that had been pent up inside him. He crawled into bed and curled up small, letting sleep take him to a place where he wouldn't need to face the world that was too big, too complicated, for someone only fifteen.

And in his soul room Yami cried, wishing he could be Yugi, could make the right decision, could be strong at the most unexpected times, and be honest and trusting and friendly with everyone. But mostly wishing that they were together again and there was no bitter rift between them. Longing to be able to do the right thing.

And hating himself for being so selfish as to want what others so obviously deserved.

But mostly he cried.


End file.
